


An Average Sixteen Year-Old Suburban Existence

by until_the_earth_is_free



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Attempt at Humor, Bad Parenting, Canon Disabled Character, Crack Treated Seriously, Erik is a Father, M/M, Outer Space, POV Peter, Rick and Morty - Freeform, literally what the fuck is this fic i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:06:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/until_the_earth_is_free/pseuds/until_the_earth_is_free
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You send us postcards?" Peter asked, looking up at Erik, who was currently gazing mournfully into the distance and pretending not to hear his ex-in-laws call him a lunatic.</p><p>"Yeah," Erik said, quietly.  "I travel a lot in my ship."</p><p>"You have a boat?" Peter asked.</p><p>Erik smiled softly.</p><p>"Something like that."</p><p>***</p><p>[aka the fic where erik is an alcoholic space scientist who sucks at parenting, charles is a telepathic alien with radical politics, and pietro is just a normal teenager with a lot to process]</p><p>[aka the rick and morty crossover fic]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i would say that you don't need to watch rick and morty for this to make sense, but it probably doesnt even make sense if you Do watch rick and morty so have fun with that
> 
> trigger warnings!!!! ableism, shitty parenting, alcoholism, a lot of swearing, minor character death that occurs before the fic starts

 

 

 

 

 

Peter's life had been a pretty average sixteen year-old suburban existence until the night he was woken up at four am by an inebriated stranger crawling into his bedroom via the window.

"Holy fuck," said Peter.

"Shhhh..." said the stranger, tumbling to the ground, before staggering back up into a standing position.  "Don't, _hic_ , don't make a, uh, a big racket, okay?  The... The inter- intergalactic cops are after me.  I gotta, _hic_...  I gotta hide."

Peter scrabbled at his bedside table for his cell phone, which he then realised was in his grandparents' room because of some bullshit punishment for getting a D in his most recent biology test.  And now he was probably going to die at the hands of some drunk criminal stranger.  Thanks, Grandma.

"Pietro," said the stranger, although it sounded more like "Peetro", and _wow, holy fuck, how does he know my name, let alone my real name?_   "Y-Y-You gotta let me... let me crash on your, uh, floor, okay?  I'm just gonna...  gonna go to sleep here, nice and, uh, quiet, until the g-galactic bastards find someone else to incon-inconvenience, and I'll, _hic_ , I'll be gone by tomorrow morning, okay?"

And then Peter watched as the stranger practically fell to the floor and started snoring in the space of about two seconds.

When he was certain that the guy was actually asleep, Peter ripped off his blanket and ran down to his grandparents' room.

"Grandpa, wake up," he hissed, shaking his sleeping grandfather's arm.  "There's an intruder in my bedroom."

Grandpa looked at him with wide eyes.

Together, they crept up to the bedroom, Grandpa holding a golf club up, ready to strike.  He gently kicked open the door to see the intruder, who was exactly where Peter had left him, now curled up on the floor.

"Oh hell," said Grandpa, lowering his golf club.  "Turn on the lights, would you, son?"

Peter obliged.  The stranger on the floor groaned at the sudden brightness in the room.

"Oh fuck," said Grandpa, which was the first time Peter had _ever_ heard the man swear without being in considerable physical pain.  "Oh fucking deary me."

"Uh..." said Peter, awkwardly.  "Should I still call the cops?"

"Don't bother," replied his grandfather.  "Peter, that man is your father."

The man on the floor groaned some more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Peter woke up the next day, the man was gone.  He was wondering if he had just dreamed the entire drama of last night when his little half-sister, Nina, appeared in his doorway.

"Hey, Peter," she said.  "Do you know who the guest in the kitchen is?"

Peter froze.

"Not a clue."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Prior to this incident, back when Peter had a normal life, he knew exactly two things about his dad.

  1. Peter's dad had left two weeks before Peter's first birthday to get milk from the supermarket and didn't come back.
  2. Nine years later, Peter's dad had apparently decided to come back and had tried to attend Mom's funeral but Grandpa had refused to let him come into the church. Peter remembered being angry at his grandfather for that, for not even letting Peter see what his own dad looked like, but he later grew to understand the decision. People who only visit for favours or funerals aren't the kind of people you need in your life.



 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"I want you out of our house," Grandpa was saying, as Peter walked into the kitchen, still wearing his pyjamas.

Grandma turned to look at Peter.

"Peter," she said, imploringly.  "Why aren't you dressed for school yet?"

"Seriously?" he replied, sitting down at the breakfast table.  "That's your most pressing concern right now?"

Grandma pursed her lips.

"Hey, Pietro," said the stranger, who was standing by the stove and apparently cooking something delicious and smelling of fried batter.  "Sorry for waking you up last night."

"It's okay," Peter replied, shrugging, and pouring himself some frosties. 

" _Peter_ ," Grandpa said.  "I think you should go get dressed."

"Who the fuck is Peter?" the stranger asked, flipping over what appeared to be a slice of French toast in the pan.

"The child you didn't raise," Grandpa retorted. 

"I'm not a child," interrupted Peter, mouthful of frosties. 

"Peter, get ready for school," Grandpa said.

The stranger switched off the stove and turned around, wrinkling his nose.

"You still go to _school_?" he asked, with a level of judgement in his tone that Peter had only experienced from cheerleaders in their junior year.

"I'm sixteen years old," replied Peter, indignantly.  Then, because he couldn't let Grandpa have all the zingers: "but I guess it's hard to keep track of time when you're having fun _not_ paying child support."

The stranger looked sharply at Grandpa.

"Have you not been receiving my child support?" he demanded.

"You mean, the pieces of paper entitling your child to twelve Gribble units a month?"

"They're called _cheques_ , Gerald.  You take them to this place called a _bank_ -"

"Get out of my house," Grandpa said.

"Wait, hang on," Grandma said, moving between the two men with her hands up.  "Let's at least let Erik have breakfast first."

Erik.  Peter's dad was called Erik.

"Thank you, Mrs Maximoff," Erik said, taking a spatula and moving his toast from the pan to a plate in what was possibly the smuggest handling of French toast Peter had ever witnessed.

"Anya," Grandpa said, with gritted teeth.  "Could we please talk upstairs?"

As the grandparents left the room, Erik sat down across from Peter, giving Peter the chance to finally and discretely stare at the guy whose genes had given him life.  Tall, auburn, gruff, still wearing that black turtleneck and white doctor's coat from last night.  Honestly, apart from the fact that the guy seemed to enjoy winding Grandpa up, there wasn't any resemblance between him and Peter at all.

"So," Peter said, finally, because it didn't seem like Erik was going to talk.  "What the fuck is a Gribble unit, anyway?"

Erik looked up from his plate of toast.

"It's the most common unit of currency in the galaxy," he said.  "I thought that it would be obvious."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No, I'm fucking not," Erik replied.  "And watch your language."

Peter pressed his lips together.

Erik sighed.

"Do you want some French toast?" he offered.

Peter narrowed his eyes.

"Okay," he said, grabbing a fork and taking a piece from Erik's plate to his own now-empty cereal bowl.

He took a bite.  And then coughed and spat it out.

"Watch your manners," Erik said, because apparently Peter's dad was a massive asshole.

"Is there alcohol in this?" Peter demanded.

Erik laughed.

Upstairs, Peter could hear his grandparents raising their voices.

"Because Magda loved him!  Don't you at least trust your own daughter?"

"Anya, the man is obviously deranged.  You should see the kind of deluded postcards he sends.  I've been _protecting_ this family from-"

"You send us postcards?" Peter asked, looking up at Erik, who was currently gazing mournfully into the distance and pretending not to hear his ex-in-laws call him a lunatic.

"Yeah," Erik said, quietly.  "I travel a lot in my ship."

"You have a boat?" Peter asked.

Erik smiled softly.

"Something like that."

"Can I see it one day?" Peter said, before internally kicking himself for asking such a stupid, clingy question.

"Sure," replied Erik.  "You can see it right now if you'd like."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Peter's first ever ride in Erik's spaceship occurred not four minutes later, with Peter still in his pyjamas and Erik still under the legal limit to operate a spacecraft.  Peter felt slightly bad about leaving without letting his grandparents know, which is why he left a note that read: "gone to bond with Erik, be back for dinner - P".

"It's a good habit to leave notes," Peter informed Erik, as they took off from the parking spot Erik had found just around the corner from the Maximoffs' house.

Erik sighed and switched gears, causing the ship to shoot up and out of earth's atmosphere.

"I left a note," he said, defensively.

Peter looked out of the window at the swirling clouds and the bright blue ocean that was Earth.

"Pietro," Erik said.  "You've probably heard a lot about me over the years, stuff that isn't true.  Now, this isn't my way of getting out of apologising, but I'm just letting you know that what your grandparents told you is most likely about 80% fictional."

Peter continued to look out of the window.  He could see a light on the shadowed part of the world that looked like it could be Tokyo.

"You know," Erik continued.  "You're taking the whole _being in outer space_ bit a lot better than the average human.  I think you might have inherited my gift for intergalactic travel."

Peter shrugged past the weighted compliment.

"Yeah, well," he replied.  "After my deadbeat dad showed up for the first time in fifteen years by crawling through my window drunk, I'm pretty sure nothing could throw me."

Man, was he going to be proven wrong.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After about a week of Erik arguing with Peter's grandparents, Peter arguing with Peter's grandparents, and Erik swigging generously from his hip flask, it was agreed on Monday that Erik wasn't allowed to stay in the house, but he could take Peter out on Saturdays, provided that Peter came back for dinner.

Peter was kind of shocked at this compromise, but, then again, he wouldn't really want to piss off a guy who kept a box of anti-matter in his glove compartment "for emergencies" either.

Erik, however, apparently couldn't wait until the agreed-upon visiting hours.  Just after midnight that Tuesday night, Peter was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at his window.  He looked up, to see Erik, clinging to the side of the house with one arm and waving for Peter to come over with the other.

Rolling his eyes, Peter got out of bed and opened his window.

"Hey... Pietro," said Erik.

"Are you drunk?" Peter asked, a pointless question.

"Pietro," said Erik.  "Do you... Do you want to see, _hic_ , see something, something cool?"

"I don't know, man," said Peter.  "I kind of have school in the morning."

Erik shook his head.

"School's for, _hic_ , school's for f-fucking nerds, Pietro," he said.  "The kind of...  The kind of shit I'm gonna, _hic_ , I'm gonna show you...  It'll blow your, your fucking mind."

Peter sighed.

"C-Come up, come up to the roof, Pietro," Erik said.

"The roof?"

"I'm not l-leaving my, _hic_ , my German-manufactured spaceship where... where anyone can just, _hic_ , can just scrape it," scoffed Erik.

"Did you say _German_?" Peter asked.

Erik rolled his eyes.

"Best motherfucking en-engineers in the, _hic_ , in the whole fucking galaxy, Pietro," he said.  "Now are we taking a, _hic_ , taking a trip to Andromeda or what?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

That week, Peter went on a total of four more spaceship rides with Erik and, on one of those rides, Erik was even sober.  Peter had expected the excursions to be a bit awkward, but Erik seemed more than happy to rant away about particle beams and psychedelic rock bands and the racial tensions within various alien species, while Peter looked out the window.  Most of the time, Erik was running errands, meaning Peter was roped in to carrying equipment while his dad collected crystals and fungi from the planet they were on.  It was collaborative enough that Peter could even pretend that this was a normal father-son bonding experience.

Neither of them really talked about the reason that Erik had vanished for fifteen years or the reason that Erik had decided to show up again without any warning at all, which suited Peter just fine.  He was never really an in-touch-with-his-emotions kind of guy.

Grandpa was annoyed that Erik had taken to parking his spaceship on the roof, especially as the guy didn't seem to have a house of his own and was technically living out of his ship.

"I told you that you couldn't stay in our home," Grandpa yelled, standing in the garden and looking up, that Sunday night.

"I'm not staying _in_ your, _hic_ , your precious house," Erik yelled back, sticking his head out the window of his ship.

"If you're not gone by tomorrow morning, I'm calling the cops," Grandpa yelled.

"I'm on the Most Wanted list of eight different star systems," Erik yelled.  "I'd like to see your pathetic Earth police _try_ to catch me."

"Do you guys mind shutting up?" yelled Peter, sticking his head outside his bedroom window.  "It's eleven and I've got school tomorrow."

It was a weird family set-up, but there was a strange routine in the yelling and the drinking and the late nights spent in outer space.  Peter should have known it wouldn't last.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Three months later_

 

They were returning from another expedition, a plastic bag of shiny blue crystals in the backseat, when the spaceship started beeping.

"Ah, fuck," said Erik, looking down at a flashing red symbol on the dashboard.

"Are we breaking down?" Peter asked, nervously.  He was pretty sure his cell phone plan didn't cover this kind of long distance call to AAA.

"No," said Erik.  "That's just a... just a distress signal from a nearby ship.  Apparently, there's been a, _hic_ , a medical emergency."

"Should we go help them?" Peter asked.  "I mean, you're, like, a doctor, right?"

He actually had no idea what Erik did, apart from collect weird alien shit and fuck around with test tubes.

Erik sighed.

"Fine," he said, casually spinning the steering wheel, causing the whole spaceship to shudder and flip downwards, towards a much larger spaceship. 

They docked in the larger ship's hangar, and Peter tried not to get excited by how much the echoey chamber lined with metal panels reminded him of _Star Wars_.

"Hey!" yelled Erik, his voice echoing around the empty hangar.  "Which of you b-bozos is, _hic_ , is dying, so we can heal you and get the... get the fuck out-outta here?"

"Erik Lehnsherr," declared a voice from behind them.

Peter and Erik spun around to see a tall man lurking ominously in the shadow of their spaceship.

"Ah, for fuck's sake, Stryker," said Erik.  "If I wanted to see a, _hic_ , a government tool today, I wouldn't have... wouldn't have left my plasma, _hic,_ plasma ray in the glove compartment."

The man called Stryker frowned.

"You should have returned your plasma ray along with your badge when you left the federation," he said, sternly.

Peter turned to Erik, astonished.

"You used to work for the government?" he asked.

Erik sighed.

"This is so fucking em-embarrassing," he said.  Then, to the G-man, "hey, dude, do you mind, _hic_ , not making me look like a nerd in front of my... in front of my kid?"

Stryker clenched his jaw, unamused.

Erik rolled his eyes.

"Okay," he said.  "Well, this was a fucking bummer.  Erik out."

From out of the pocket of his lab coat, he took his portal gun, at the same time that the Stryker raised an actual gun.

"Oh, _shit_ ," said Erik, sarcastically.  "Is that a, _hic_ , an M1911 pistol?  What are you... What are you gonna do, sh-shoot me with it?"

" _Dude_ ," hissed Peter, looking concernedly at Stryker's concentrated stare.  "I don't think this dude is fucking around."

"Yeah?" replied Erik.  "Well, neither am I."

He moved to point his portal gun at Stryker.

Several things happened in the next few seconds.

Firstly, Stryker dropped to the floor, as though a silent bullet had flown right through him, leaving no mark.

Secondly, Erik gasped and dropped his portal gun as though it had burnt him.

Thirdly, a bright white orb appeared above Stryker and Peter felt like he'd just inhaled from a really good spliff.

Erik looked up at the bright light with an odd expression.

"Charles?"

"Erik?" the orb replied, apparently British.

"What the fuck," said Peter.

"Uh," said Erik, sheepishly, which was a satisfying look on him.  "Pietro?  This is... This is Charles.  We, uh, we sort of used to... date."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik catch up. Pietro regrets his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: human rights abuse, more bad parenting and a lot of swearing

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Charles?"

"Erik?" the orb replied, apparently British.

"What the fuck," said Peter.

"Uh," said Erik, sheepishly, which was a satisfying look on him.  "Pietro?  This is Charles.  We, uh, we sort of used to date."

Peter blinked.

Then, he looked up at the glowing orb and wondered if it counted as being gay if the other guy was just a masculine-sounding orb.

The orb started vibrating.

"Actually," it chuckled.  "The orb is merely a telepathic projection.  I have a physical body back on my planet and, although we do not adhere to human concepts of biological sex, I would consider myself male by Earth definition."

"Wait, you live within range of here?" Erik demanded.

"Graymalkin L-1407," the orb said. 

"Hold up," said Peter, his mind still reeling.  "Telepathic projection?"

"Charles here can read our minds, control our movements, manipulate our thoughts, access our repressed memories," Erik explained, slowly grinning and not taking his eyes off of the orb.

Peter thought he might be sick, and only slightly because a fucking orb could be rifling around in his brain at that very moment.

"I try not to be invasive," the orb said.  "I understand that humans appreciate privacy."

"So..." Peter said, looking over at Stryker's still body on the floor a few feet away. "What do you call _that_?"

"I try not to be invasive except in extraordinary circumstances," the orb corrected.  "Which only really happen when Erik's in the vicinity."

Erik smirked and raised an eyebrow.

The orb tinted pink.

"A-Anyway!" it stammered, brightly.  "It's been far too long, Erik.  Why don't you come over to Graymalkin for a little catch-up and some whiskey?"

"That sounds great," said Erik.

Peter glanced at his watch.

"Okay..." he said.  "But I haven't slept yet and I only have, like, three hours before I have to be at school."

"Groovy!" said the orb.  "Three hours is more than enough time for a quick tour!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ten minutes and one awkward spaceship ride later (during which Erik and the orb were definitely having some weird sexual mind conversation, if the number of times Erik licked his lips was anything to go by), Peter, Erik and the orb were on Graymalkin, which was a planet that looked basically the same as Earth except that it seemed to be populated by tiny green people.

They landed in the driveway of a pretty fancy-looking mansion, kicking up the dust into the flowerbeds.

"Welcome to the Institute," said the orb in the backseat, who, when Peter looked behind, suddenly wasn't an orb at all, but a brunet non-green man in his early thirties.  "Hello, Pietro.  I'm Charles Xavier."

"Hi," said Peter, wondering how this guy managed to have the same skin shade as a literal white glowing orb.

"Charles," said Erik.  "Can we... Can we go inside and talk?"

The brunet smiled gently.

"Absolutely," he said.

Erik and Charles got out of the spaceship and walked up the driveway together to the front door of the mansion, leaving Peter in the ship without a second glance.

"So," said a British voice from the backseat.

Peter jumped and twisted around to see Charles still sitting behind him.

"How-"

"Oh, Pietro,"  Charles chuckled.  "What you see here is still just a projection.  I just prefer to save my more complicated forms for when minds are on the same planet as me."

"Oh," said Peter.  "So, the guy who just left with Erik...?"

"Also a projection," Charles confirmed.  "I am currently controlling four different projections: one is speaking to you; one is teaching a class on local chemistry; one is bending Erik over a desk, and one is online shopping for skimmed milk."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Peter gasped.

"I know," said the Charles projection with an exasperated smile.  "I personally prefer semi-skimmed, but my students-"

"No, not that!" exclaimed Peter.  "I mean, 2% milk all the way, but why the fuck would you tell me about... the other thing."

The Charles projection widened his eyes.

"Oh, sorry!" he said, cheerfully.  "It's just quite difficult to maintain a brain-to-mouth filter when I'm influencing several minds at once."

"It's okay," said Peter, even though it really wasn't and he still low-key felt like puking.  "Where's your real body anyway?"

The Charles projection blinked.

"Why don't I give you a tour of the Institute, while Erik and I catch up?" he said, brightly, as if he hadn't heard Peter's question at all.

"Um," said Peter. 

"I can tell you all sorts of anecdotes about Erik accidentally landing his spaceship on top of one of my students," offered the Charles projection.

"Okay," said Peter.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Institute was, as the Charles projection explained, a school and a safe haven for any young life forms in the local star system whose lives had been somehow damaged or affected by the Federation's most recent legislation on "what counted as an intelligent life form".

"It's absolutely ridiculous," said the Charles projection, as he walked Peter through halls and classrooms, all buzzing with various alien students.  "For instance, the laws have determined that anyone with fewer than two limbs is a Class D life form, which amounts to the same possession of human rights as the dairy cows we imported from earth."

"Right," said Peter.

"I've been writing to the Federation for an appeal on their classification and a demilitarisation of their police force," continued the Charles projection.  "But I haven't received a word.  Although, that may be mostly your father's doing..."

"Erik?" Peter asked.  "What did he do?"

The Charles projection laughed.

"What _didn't_ Erik Lehnsherr do?" he said.  "About seventeen years ago, your father and I used to work for the government, as a sort of consultancy group doing sociological surveys on local life forms.  I would collect genetic samples, and he would study their behaviours and cultures.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, we were basically a front, used by the Federation so they could pretend they cared about the star system's biological community, while they finished up writing a bill that limited the rights of certain species and meant huge corporations could exploit their workers.

"Obviously, Erik and I were furious enough to quit, and young and reckless enough to try to take on the Federation ourselves."

Peter swallowed.

"What happened?"

The Charles projection sighed, and stopped walking for a moment.  He stared at the rows of school lockers that he and Peter were standing by.

"We tried to fight the big government and big government won," he said, his voice rather hollow.  "Erik became a wanted criminal who collects resources and weapons for the rebellion and I became..."

The Charles projection faltered and trailed off.

Peter frowned.

"Not to be insensitive or anything," he said, awkwardly.  "But if Erik left me and my mom because he had to go on the run, when did you guys... uh..."

Charles smiled sadly.

"Several years ago, Erik got into a spot of trouble on a nearby planet and I intervened," he said.  "We... caught up.  I hadn't seen him since."

"Oh," said Peter.  "So, when he and my mom... you never..."

Charles blinked.

"I was in love with Erik long before he married your mother," he said, simply.  "And I was in love with him long after.  I think he must have known; I was too scared to find out.  But he never said anything until six years ago."

Six years ago...  Mom had died six years ago.

As if he had heard that thought, and he probably had, the Charles projection swallowed visibly.

Peter looked at his sneakers and thought about punching the projection in the face.  He wondered if his hand would go right through.  When he looked up again, the Charles projection was gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Peter looked hurriedly around the corridor, but there were only rows of lockers and various school bags lying about the floor.  He was just about to try and figure out how to get back outside to the spaceship, when a small blue alien with a tail ran out of one of the classrooms.

"Did you see where the professor went?" it asked Peter in a high, accented voice.

He shook his head.

The alien ran off, followed by a trail of other waist-high aliens, all chattering with equally high, panicked voices.

Peter frowned, and then decided to find Erik.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Erik was standing in what appeared to be Charles' study, putting his arms through the sleeves of his lab coat, his black turtleneck on backwards and inside-out so the tag was sticking out.

"Pietro!" Erik greeted, nonchalantly.  "How was your, _hic_ , your tour?"

"Fine..." said Peter edgily.

Erik narrowed his eyes.

"What did you do to Charles, Pietro?" he asked, suddenly very sober.

"Nothing!" squeaked Peter.  "What did _you_ do to Charles?"

Erik raised an eyebrow.

"I really d-don't think you, _hic_ , think you want to know the answer t-to that question," said Erik.

"But he's alright, isn't he?" Peter said, worriedly.  "Do you know where he went?"

But before Erik could reply, a booming voice suddenly spoke.

"Erik Lehnsherr," it said.  "Please take your son and get out of my school."

Erik frowned.

"Okay, s-seriously, Pietro," he said, glaring at Peter.  "What the fuck did you... did you do to Charles?"

"Dude, I didn't touch your precious Charles!" Peter replied, holding his hands up defensively.

"Leave the child out of it," said the voice, exasperated and slightly quieter.

"I'm not a child!" exclaimed Peter, at the same time Erik said: "Charles, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" demanded Charles, coldly.  "After years of sexual tension, we made love for the very first time when you were coming back from your ex's _funeral_?"

"Oh my God," said Peter. "I do not need to hear this."

"I was lonely," replied Erik, petulantly.

"I've been lonely for fifteen years!"

Erik paused, while Peter wondered how to disconnect from a telepathic three-way call.

"I didn't think you wanted me," Erik said, quietly.

"Why on earth would you think that?" the Charles voice asked, sceptically.

"I never see you anymore," Erik said.  "I haven't seen you properly since... since the beach.  It's just projections."

There was silence for a moment.

Then,

"Erik," the Charles voice said, tiredly.  "Maybe you should come downstairs to the basement."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The basement of the Institute was entirely different from the school area.  While the ground floor had wood panelling and antique furniture, the basement was all modern metal and glass.

"No offence," said Peter, as they approached a reinforced steel door behind which Charles was apparently living.  "But why am I here?"

"Shut up and portal us into that room," Erik said.

"Why can't you do it?" Peter asked.

"Because I'm fucking emotionally fragile right now: is that what you want to fucking hear? Now pull the trigger on the portal gun, you whiny waste of my fucking DNA."

Yikes.  Sobered-up Erik was a dick.

Peter pulled the trigger and they stepped into the green vortex together.

 

The first thing that Peter noticed about the room is that it was very warm, despite its clinically metallic furnishings.  It looked more like a hospital room than an actual living space: with a minimalist metal frame bed and a non-descript chest of drawers stacked with books.  There weren't any pictures displayed.

By the desk in the far corner of the room sat a bald man in a wheelchair, who looked up when Erik and Peter stepped out of the vortex and into the room.

"Charles?" Erik whispered, in a broken voice, rushing forward and kneeling in front of the man.  "I hadn't realised...  After the beach...  I didn't know you'd lost your..."

He trailed off.

The man, the real Charles, grimaced.

"I haven't _lost_ my legs, Erik," he said, stiffly.  "They're just no longer functional."

Erik frowned.

"What?" he said, confused.  "No, I was talking about your hair. What _happened_ to you, Charles?"

Charles stared at Erik.

"Genetics," he said, distractedly.  "On my first parent's side.  But, honestly, you don't mind about the wheelchair?"

Erik shrugged.

"I'll have to make some adjustments to my spaceship, but stop changing the subject," he said, grabbing Charles' hands in his.  "Have you considered Rogaine?"

"Erik," Charles said, smiling gently.  "Shut up about the hair."

"Make me," said Erik, smiling back as he leaned in and-

Peter put his hand over his eyes.

"Uh, guys?"

No reply.  Still too scared to remove his hands,

 _"Guys?!_ "

No reply.

From behind his hand, he rolled his eyes.

"Bye Erik, bye Charles," he said, pointedly, before using his other hand to pull the trigger of the portal gun and walking blind through the vortex, back into his bedroom on earth.

"Peter?" spoke a familiar voice.  "The school bus is about to leave."

Of course it was.

Peter dropped the portal gun onto his bed, grabbed his backpack from under his desk and ran down the stairs to the school bus waiting outside.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he came back from six hours of dozing off in various classrooms without absorbing any information whatsoever, Erik's spaceship still wasn't back on the roof.  Peter traipsed back into his bedroom for some much needed sleep, only to find that the portal gun was  missing.

Erik must have returned, taken his shit, and left. 

Peter sighed.

He should have been expecting this, really.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next two weeks passed in a miserable blur.  School wasn't the same without being perpetually exhausted from late night space adventures.  The house felt silent without Erik and Grandpa at each other's throats.

He supposed he should be happy for Erik, since Erik and Charles seemed to get along so well, most of the time.

And routine was good. Peter finally had a normal life again.

It was a Saturday evening, and Peter was playing through all the video games he had been neglecting in the past few months, when he heard a sharp rap on his window.

Peter pressed pause and looked up, to see Erik, clinging to the wall of the Maximoffs' house with an enormous grin.

For a moment, Peter didn't get up.

"Hey Pietro," slurred Erik.  "Wanna see something cool?"

Peter sighed, got up and opened the window.

"Okay," he said.

"Just... come up to the, _hic_ , to the roof, okay?" Erik said.  "Charles is waiting for us in the, in the spaceship."

Charles?

"Hey, Pietro," said a smooth, British voice in the back of Peter's head.  "I hope you don't mind me tagging along for your expedition.  Erik has always been absolute shit at specimen collection: God knows what he's done without me these years."

"He's talking shit about me isn't he," growled Erik. 

Then, looking up to the roof,

"Fuck you, Xavier!" Erik yelled.  "At least I still have hair!"

"Hey, would you please keep it down out there!" yelled Grandpa from a downstairs window.

Peter smiled.

So much for a normal life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah.

**Author's Note:**

> dw guys this is continuing as soon as i can. be bothered 2 update (aka. sometime in the next week)
> 
> hmu on tumblr !!! @transcharlesxavier


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